1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable communication terminal such as a portable telephone terminal and the like for carrying out a radio communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various kinds of portable telephone terminals are in practical use, which carry out radio communication with a predetermined radio base station and carry out a telephone conversation with a counterpart connected through its base station. Here, a precondition for the portable telephone terminal to be able to carry out the telephone conversation is such that it exists within an area capable of carrying out the radio communication with the base station. Therefore, a display panel (a liquid display and the like) with which the portable telephone terminal is provided is made to display reception circumstances of radio waves from the base station in a plurality of stages while a user ascertains its display and judges if the terminal is in a state of being able to receive transmission from the terminal and a call from the base station.
As for the display of the reception situation by this display panel, depending on, for example, a reception level of radio waves from the base station, displays in a plurality of stages, about four stages, are carried out; displays are made in a plurality of stages from a situation where it is entirely impossible to carry out a telephone conversation with the base station to a situation where it is possible to most favorably carry out a telephone conversation. For example, in a case of a portable telephone terminal for a radio telephone system, error rates (error rate) of reception data are divided into 4 stages with three values, 0.3%, 1% and 3% serving as boundaries, thereby making displays in the 4 stages. Generally speaking, at a time of transmitting audio data on a telephone conversation, if an error rate is lower than a value of as much as 0.3%, it is possible to carry out voice transmission of quality which is not detrimental to the telephone conversation.
Meanwhile, situation of the portable telephone terminal sometimes become worse due to some kinds of impediments, circumstances of radio waves and the like even if it is situated comparatively near to, for example, a base station. In such cases, the reception situation is improved on many occasions by simply changing a position or a direction (in correct terms, a position or a direction of an antenna attached to a terminal) of the portable telephone terminal.
On the other hand, there have been carried out various kinds of data communications such as transmission and reception of electronic mail data, browsing of various kinds of home pages of the internet and the like by connecting the portable telephone terminal with some kind of a data communication network side via a telephone circuit after connecting the portable telephone terminal with a small-size information processing terminal (for example, a note-type personal computer device, an electronic notebook device and the like).
By the way, when the above-mentioned data communication is carried out by using the portable telephone terminal, it is desirable that there are no transmission errors, and even if there are transmission errors, only a very few of them can be permissible as long as they are nearly perfectly corrected by an error correcting code attached to the transmission data. That is, when there are errors in the data received by way of data communication, it becomes impossible to carry out a correct display of an electronic mail or the like, which is not desirable.
Here, a reception level display with which the portable telephone terminal is provided, is, as mentioned above, a level display with a state capable of transmitting telephone conversation voice being a reference, but even when a display of some conditions at the highest level (for example, a display corresponding to less than 0.3% in the error rate of reception data) in terms of the reception level display is being carried out, favorable data communications can not be carried out in many circumstances as there is a case where an error rate is inappropriate for the data communication. For example, when the reception data error rate is 0.3%, the most favorable state is displayed as a reception level display of the terminal, but the error rate is still too high for the data communication, thereby giving rise to errors in the reception data or entailing a problem that a data transmission rate is lowered in order to carry out a retransmission process of the data in which errors have been found.
In order to solve these problems, a method is conceivable, in which the reception level displays by, for example, a display panel, with which the portable telephone terminal is provided, are carried out in more detailed stages to be able to judge whether or not there is an appropriate circumstance for data transmission, but when time for an audio telephone conversation by means of voice is considered, even though conditions suited for a telephone conversation are in place, levels are displayed in a plurality of stages, which leads to unnecessarily detailed displays, thereby incurring a problem to have embarrassed a user. Also, even when detailed level displays are carried out, it has been difficult for a user side to easily judge what extent of a level or above is suited for the data communication.
Meanwhile, here, an explanation has been made by exemplifying the portable telephone terminal for a radio telephone circuit, but the same problem resides with a case of a portable communication terminal for a radio communication circuit other than the radio telephone circuit.
An object of the present invention is, in view of such the points, to make it possible to simply set a favorable reception state when communications such as the data communication and the like different from a telephone conversation are carried out.
A first aspect of the present invention is arranged such that reception circumstances detected by a reception circumstances detecting unit is judged by a control unit in comparison with a first threshold value as well as a second threshold value, and reception circumstances based on comparison with the first threshold value by the control unit and reception circumstances based on comparison with the second threshold value by the control unit are notified by respectively different notifying units.
With such the arrangement, for example, a notifying unit of reception circumstances based on the comparison with the first threshold value can carry out a notification process of reception circumstances suited for an audio telephone conversation and a notifying unit of reception circumstances based on comparison with the second threshold value can carry out a notification process of reception circumstances suited for data communication.
A second aspect of the present invention comprises a control unit which retains the best reception circumstances value detected by the reception circumstances detecting unit and compares the retained reception circumstances value with a reception circumstances value detected by the reception circumstances detecting unit and a notification unit which, when the control unit detects a reception circumstances value almost equivalent to the reception value retained by the control unit, notifies the fact.
With such the arrangement, it is possible to judge the most favorable reception circumstances for a position at any given time as the reception circumstances almost equal to the retained best reception state is notified.